On Tuesday, commissioners voted 4-1 to put a question on the November ballot asking for an increase of 1 percentage point in the sales tax to fund things such as better mental health facilities, parks, roads, job training and workforce housing.

The “do without” argument will be made. But not among people who drive on Immokalee Road and Pine Ridge Road/White Boulevard every day and know how much an extension of Vanderbilt Beach Road is needed.

Or among those who heard Sheriff Kevin Rambosk’s presentation Tuesday and agree the jail should not be the largest mental health provider in the county.

Or among Golden Gate Estates residents who have seen a generation of children grow up waiting for Big Corkscrew Island Regional Park to become a reality and don’t want to see another generation do the same thing.

The Big Corkscrew Island Regional Park in Golden Gate Estates east of Immokalee and Oil Well roads is expected to open in 2020, but Collier County needs to decide how to pay for it.
Oscar Santiago Torres/Naples Daily News

Anyone can find something on the list of proposed projects they’d rather not spend money on. But on the whole, the list represents real needs if the quality of life here is to be maintained.

The generous thing for payers of property taxes to do would be to insist on picking up the tab themselves.

A roughly 20 percent increase in the property tax millage rate would pay for all the projects in seven years, the same time span the sales tax increase would be in effect.

But paying for $450 million in capital improvements isn’t the same as reaching across the table to pick up the lunch check, which is anathema to a lot of people anyway.

Don’t expect a groundswell of support for that idea.

Which leaves us with the much more satisfying thought of handing someone else at least part of the bill.

The question is who.

If you accept that the county will go ahead with most, if not all the projects on the list regardless of the outcome of the November vote, there are two potential sources of money in addition to existing taxpayers, who will foot most of the costs regardless.

If the sales tax passes, it is estimated, about 30 percent of the money will come from tourists and other non-residents.

They’re here. They use the roads. They use the parks. They stand to benefit from being in a place where the mentally ill are better cared for.

It’s perfectly reasonable that they chip in.

The sales tax wouldn’t apply to food or medicine. It would be assessed only on the first $5,000 of any item, adding no more than $50 to a large purchase, such as a car, and 1 percent to everything else.

The other group voters could stick with the bill would comprise future property taxpayers.

There will be people living here in five, 10 and 15 years who aren’t here now and who won’t get a vote on the question in November.

By borrowing the money to build the projects on the list, the county is enlisting their help to pay for them.

Once they’re here, they will use the facilities as much as anyone, so it’s also reasonable that they should pay.

The county has adequate borrowing capacity, should it choose that method.

The problem with that approach is that projects paid for over 20 or 25 years, which are the terms the county would likely borrow under, cost much more than projects paid for in cash.

County Manager Leo Ochs estimated $450 million, borrowed over 20 years, would end up costing county taxpayers an additional $187 million in interest.

Over 25 years, the additional cost would go up to $255 million.

Under the scenario in which the sales tax passes, existing residents would pay about $315 million of the $450 million, while non-residents would pay $135 million.

Under the borrowing scenario, existing residents and future residents would split a total bill of $637 million to $705 million over 20 or 25 years.

Each group’s share is difficult to determine without knowing how many new people will move here, what their properties will be worth and when they will move in. But it’s hard to imagine an equation in which the existing residents’ share works out to less than $315 million.

County commissioners authorized up to $100,000 to inform residents about the upcoming vote.

For the sales tax to stand a chance, that information campaign must first convince voters the identified projects are needed and then appeal to a basic human need by demonstrating that a 1 percent sales tax over seven years is the best way to get someone else to help pay for them.